Tools for Work: grafted onto long wooden handles, a clawed hand is a rake, a vertically stretched hand is a spade, a hand positioned horizontally is a hoe.The progenitor of all farmers went into a tool shop: he bought only the handles; the blade was already in his hands.In a story by Borges, an unknown Pierre Menard’ writes Don Quixote today without its being a copy; it is a new creation identical to the original but different for the time in which it is produced.

Once I saw Marco working on the copy of the panels of the north door of the Florentine Baptistery. I looked over his shoulder for the shadow of Ghiberti: surely he would have admired the skilful craft and passion.Marco adheres to things: chooses them, reproduces them, combines them, invents and creates them in an endless process in which things are charged with meaning and at the end are a self-portrait.An anvil of glazed earthenware is ready to support the cruel blows of an iron mallet while yet remaining poised on a on a sumptuous red velvet cushion.Is iron harder than clay? As in the game rock, paper, scissors where everyone beats the other cyclically.A sling stretches in vain its elastic that has become rigid bronze.A flat drum is waiting to be struck by its sticks but has since been incorporated by a tree trunk grown within the range of a beat.Fantastic maps come from the crackle of ceramic tiles while pins with spherical heads mark the major sites to the curious traveler or the flaneur.Of a mechanical instrument from a vanished civilization, there remains only the fragile brick enclosure which was destined to disappear before the iron it contained.A crazy naturalist collected plant samples and made them eternal with a coating of kaolin.A stack of bricks in terra-cotta bears the marks of a clay eater.A velvet case displays a set of teaspoons whose hollows contain the author’s fingerprints; these will escape the notice of the careless kleptomaniac dinner guest.A pair of gloves belonging to a masochistic gardener bears rose thorns driven into the palms.

Marco Degl’Innocenti works as an alchemist in converting materials and works as an artist, when, as Paul Klee writes, he does not reproduce the visible but makes visible.His sculptural objects are explorations into another dimension and another time.Even though the products are here and now they are not contemporary: the present is not enough and he who marries the zeitgeist is soon a widower.His sculptures speak of an ancient art of matter that goes beyond the times, transforming ideas into things and things into ideas.It is in this wandering reverie that the lapsus may be found (the jump, the stumble) between the idea and the object.

Marco Degl’Innocenti renounced his innocence a long time ago, despite the fate inherent in the name (nomen-omen) and faces the world with the cruel kindness of an artist.

Now we await further objects produced by him and destined to our wonder.

From an early age Marco Degli’Innocenti was fascinated with the natural phenomenon of the countryside surrounding his childhood home in Bagno a Ripoli. His curiosity expressed itself in an unusual capacity to reproduce birds, animals, fruits, seeds, branches… in highly detailed three dimensional clay studies. Growing up, his explorations gradually extended to nearby Florence and quite naturally to the unique human accomplishments of its sculptors.

The messages of a sculptor are through the work of his hands. Marco’s discourse is a visceral communication with artists released from the confines of timeframe. It has been empathetic – to heal or restore, value, realize and expand. He understands that art, whatever else its subjects, has to do with artists. Their materials, techniques and ideas.

In deciding to show his work, he allows us insight into his part of the conversation, his visions and thoughts. Solid transfiguration of natural forms; nature may be suspended but its essential messages are preserved. The hand is always present, either through impression or implied action. The sculptor is a maker. Here are some of the words you could use to speak of his sculpture: carve, model, mold, scrape, smooth, construct, select, assemble…Or its materials: bronze, terra cotta, wood, paper, silicon gum…

Or – better still – forget all words and let the work speak for itself.